The Downers O F South Australia Alick Downer
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The of South Downers Australia The Downer family has been seen by the community as part of the backbone The Downers of conservative South Australia. An intensely political family who saw public service as public duty. of Alexander Downer South Australia The Downers of South Australia is Sir Alick Downer’s lively story of this well-known family since its first members arrived in South Australia in 1837. Sir Alick Downer, who died in 1981, was Australia’s Minister for Immigration, then Australian High Commissioner in London. His book is enriched by first- hand accounts of many political events, giving rare insight into political life from the 1950s to the 1970s. Sir Alick was also a family man, and his book is a tribute to the past, present and future generations of the Downer family. Alick Downer ISBN 978-1-74305-199-3 Alick Downer 9 781743 051993 THE DOWNERS OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA The Downers of South Australia Alick Downer Wakefield Press 1 The Parade West Kent Tow n South Australia 5067 www.wakefieldpress.com.au First published 2012 Copyright © Alexander (Alick) Downer, 2012 All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher. Edited by Laura Andary Cover design by Alice James Typeset by Wakefield Press Printed by Openbook Howden Design & Print, Adelaide ISBN 978 1 74305 199 3 To my grandchildren Henry Philip Clauson Arabella Mary Clauson Betram Alexander Havelock Steens Georgina Mary Beatrice Downer Contents Foreword by Alexander Downer ix Preface xi 1 Origins 1 2 Pioneer Ancestors: Henry and Jane Downer 5 3 Charles Downer and his Descendants 11 4 Second Pioneer Son: HE Downer MP 15 5 Family Head: Alexander George Downer 24 6 Amelia 1842–1916 31 7 The Hon Sir John Downer KCMG, QC, MP 1844–1915 35 8 Harold Field Downer 1847–1887 76 9 Frank Haggar Downer, LLB 1863–1938 81 10 Alderman Sir Harold Downer, LLB 1871–1935 86 11 John Henry Downer 1872–1911 92 12 James Frederick Downer LLB 1874–1942 96 13 The Hon Sir Alexander (Alick) Downer KBE, LLD, MA 1910–1981 113 14 Thomas Edward Downer 1913– 186 Index 188 Foreword My father, Sir Alexander Downer, wrote this book in the years before his death in 1981. He often described himself as an amateur historian and his love of history extended to the history of his own family. For years, Sir Alexander – or Alick as he was known – tried to find the precise origin of the Downer family. The first chapter of the book describes his quest to find the roots of the family. Since his death, I have been able to discover the exact origins of the South Australian Downers. Henry Downer and his bride Jane Field were married in the parish church in Alverstoke in Hampshire. The church itself was rebuilt between 1863 and 1865. Alverstoke these days is a middle class suburb of what has now become the Portsmouth/Gosport conurbation. When I visited Alverstoke some years ago I came across the parish priest. I told him my great grandfather had married in the church. He regarded this as a great coincidence. A distinguished South Australian, Sir Henry Ayers, had been married in the same church. That may not, of course, have been the coincidence it appeared to be. The Ayers and Downer families may well have known each other and the Downer’s successful transition to Australia may well have played its part in encouraging the Ayers to migrate. Portsmouth was and still is Britain’s great naval base. Sailors would have returned to Portsmouth with reports of Australia and the other corners of the third world. Henry Downer, who was a naval tailor, must have thought things could only get better if he tried out South Australia. It was a brave and risky decision but it worked for him. Alick Downer was a family man. Not only was he a loving father and husband, but he also swore by the old aphorism ‘Man is an omnibus in which all of his ancestors travel.’ He believed family personality traits were passed down from one generation to the next. In the case of the Downers, he was something of a chauvinist; he believed that on balance the Downers were a good and able people. That is certainly true of some of them. But his vision of the family ix was, perhaps, a little dewy eyed. Faults were varnished into minor peccadilloes and family members of rather average ability were upgraded to able! There’s no harm in that; he was immensely proud of his family. The Downer family has been seen by the community as part of the backbone of conservative South Australia. An intensely political family who saw public service as public duty, they were certainly believers in King or Queen, Empire and country. No Downer is recorded as being a passionate republican. The Downers also saw themselves as British in a broad cultural sense and were proud of that British heritage. And none would have relished the decline of the British Empire. Beyond those verities, the Downers were nevertheless reformers when they believed reform was needed. And they were not a family driven by intolerance and bigotry. They were, for their times, entirely reasonable people. Alick Downer’s book is an interesting historical study of a family whose views have, of course, evolved as circumstances and values have changed. That must be true of every family. But this book helps to explain how that has happened. These days, the Downer family is less South Australian and more Australian than ever before. An inevitable consequence of technology and globalisation. In my direct family, only my mother – the author’s widow – and I live in South Australia. Two of my sisters live in Sydney and one in America. Two of my children live in Sydney, one in Tokyo and one in London. That may say something about the Downer family; they are, in the main, people of honest ambition, pragmatic and contributors to building Australia in many different ways. Alexander Downer, October 2012 x Preface The purpose of this book is to tell my children, grandchildren, and those who come after them, something of the lives and careers of their antecedents. For the past forty years, I have tried to gather information about my family; a task made more diffi- cult by their lack of records. Most of what they left has been lost, destroyed or burnt. In my youth, elderly relations willingly gave me recollections from childhood, and things told to them by their parents. In England, I have researched periodically within my means, and this I will continue, but genealogy nowadays is an expensive occupation. In Australia, the Archives Department in Adelaide, early newspapers and the National Library in Canberra have proved useful; so has the family tree compiled by my cousin Tom Downer together with his lively interest in our forbears. A good deal of what follows is autobiographical, being an interpretation of my relations I knew best. A disproportionate amount is about myself, which I regret: had I possessed more material on the pioneer Downers and our English origins, more justice would have been done to these courageous personalities. Perhaps my own political and diplomatic career may interest sections of the public as well as my own descendants; certainly the distinguished life of Sir John Downer is of importance to students of Australian history and politics. I am indebted to Dr John Playford of the Politics Department, Adelaide University, for his help in recent years, to my daughter Stella Stevens who typed part of the first draft of the manu- script and to Mrs Heather Simpson for her excellent typing and secretarial assistance. If some of my more remote connections feel aggrieved by not being included, I apologise in advance; my intention throughout has been to concentrate principally on those Downers who have engaged in public affairs. xi Chapter 1 Origins Downer is a name of ancient origin in England, if not of any notable distinction. The earliest references I have seen are in the fourteenth century to Robert le Downer, Ralph le Douner, and Stephen le Downar, the latter in 1327. Researchers into English surnames say it means ‘a dweller by the downs’. Sir Phillip Kerr, then Garter King of Arms, told me in 1938 that at first the name would have been ‘Down’: the suffix ‘er’ being added later. This is also the view of PA Reaney in his The Origin of English Surnames. Apparently, the ‘er’ along with other appendages, became usual to describe a man’s place of residence; it was applied particularly to country names borne by smaller farmers and rural workers in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. In Henry VIII’s reign, the name is variously mentioned. At Eltham in Kent, John Downer was buried in 1516 near to the high altar. In his will, tapers were to be burnt to various saints; he left his house and croft to his wife Margaret with remainder to his son Robert. He mentions his daughters Elen and Eleanor; a little house adjoining the kitchen is given to the parish clerk of Eltham to dwell in forever. Again, in 1526, another John Downer of Eltham made bequests to his wife Agnes, his son John, and a house and land to his daughter Agnes. Later, in 1544 in a will proved at Rochester, John Downer declared his wife Elizabeth to have tenement and lands in Eltham for ten years; they were then to go to J Petley and his heirs.